Secrets

Do you have a secret life,
with secret places explored
only by yourself?
Do you?
Tell me about it,
let me in.
No you can’t,
of course you can’t,
it’s a secret.
Only you can go there.

So I must imagine
your secret life for myself.
May I?
Perhaps a house
with another family in it.
Perhaps a box hidden
under the floor
containing
old love letters
or pornographic magazines

Am I getting warm?
Of course you won’t say.
Well, you can’t say.
For you are part of
my secret life.
My imaginings,
my dreams and fantasies.
And they are part of me.
As real to me as the life I expose.
but no one can go there.
They’re my secrets.
What about you?
Do you have a secret life?
Do you?

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Anxious

I am dancing
in the sunlight,
the bright, bright light.
I know the cloud is there
but I can forget it, till I stop.
And then..
There it is,
even bigger
and blacker
than before.
Darker than
ever.

It doesn’t like me dancing,
doesn’t like the laughter
or the sunshine.
Brightness breaks it,
shatters it into a grey mist.
But still it won’t leave me.

The brighter the sunlight,
the louder the laughter,
the greater my fear
that it will form again
and suck me into it’s
darkness.

https://issuu.com/wandr…/docs/reflection_wr_mag_nov_dec_2016

Lost

All those lost souls wandering sadly
in the space of their imaginations.
Where are they?
I can't find them,
can't help them.
All those lost socks swallowed.
by the washing machine.
Eaten up
Digested.
Where are they?
Odd,
but I can't find them.
All those lost words tumbling
through the dictionary.
Sometimes I find a few
and catch them
hold them,
write them down.
Then, sometimes
a few more find me
and I grab them too
and re arrange them all.
Sometimes they are worth reading
found and picked up for keeping.

First published in Silver Apples Issue 9, People We Left Behind

https://silver-apples.squarespace.com/…

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Grains of Time

Time is running out for me
And I sit here gazing into space
Watching each grain trickle away.
I can't catch them,
Can't stop them,
Can't slow them down
Or speed them up.
I can only live the moment
As it passes.

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The Hedgerow Fairies

Where have they gone,
the hedgerow fairies
in their harebell hats?
I used to see them sitting
under their leafy roofs
stitching their summer dresses
of poppy and mallow petals
with long silk threads
catching the summer sunlight
as the smiling spiders spun.
I miss them so,
the hedgerow fairies
in their harebell hats.

I used to see them collecting
armfuls of meadow sweet
to stuff their nighttime mattresses,
making doorways in their new
toadstool homes with sharp stones.
Maybe they’ve gone underground
to escape the passing cars and tractors.
Maybe they only come out at night now
and stitch and stuff under the moonlight.
I don’t know.
But I miss them so,
the hedgerow fairies
in their harebell hats.

http://stanzaicstylings.blogspot.co.uk/…/the-hedgerow-fairi…

The Hedgerow Fairies by Lynn White

The Hedgerow Fairies Where have they gone, the hedgerow fairies in their harebell hats? I used to see them sitting under their leafy roofs ...

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Motherly Love

I have spent a lifetime
trying to break away,
trying to break out, 
trying to find myself.
Always on the edge,
always on the outside,
not quite a part,
of it, not quite
a beatnik,
or a mod,
hippy, or
punk.

I was early to realise that
what she wanted me to be
was what she had wanted
for herself, about her, not me.
I wanted to escape such love.
I thought I could escape.
I thought I had escaped.
And I did, surely I did
escape
some
of it.

But not all.
Not enough.
So even now I feel tethered.
After all this time of leaving
her behind,
I remain
unsure
of my
own.

http://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-lynn-white

Buzzing

I can hear the flies buzzing
since I died.
In life I could shoo them away,
open a window
to persuade them through,
though usually they were
too stupid
to grasp the chance of freedom
offered and escape.
Now there is no window to be
opened.
This is a closed space.
Eternal night.
No possibility
of freedom,
or escape.
Not for me.
Not for them.

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The End

Once up on a time
he thought
the worst would be
not knowing
what happened next,
not knowing
how it all ended.
Now,
with the madness spiraling
into an ever tighter vortex,
he no longer wants to know
more.
Now
he thinks
there will be no end
to the madness.
Only his end
with his death.

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Cabbage Dreams

I am dreaming my cabbage dream.
I’m peeling off the outer leaves
to find what lies hidden beneath.
Looks much the same as the outer leaf,
a little less battered and crinkled
but fundamentally the same.
Now for the next layer.
There’s a drop of water
shining full of light
and something darker, more solid,
the leavings of some hidden creature.
Another layer reveals the holes
and the sleepy caterpillar
dreaming...
without his pipe
without his crown,
so unsure of
his own
identity,
much less mine.
If I peel off
layer after layer until
I get to the heart of it,
will I understand where I’ve come from
and be able to unpack the dream,
find the pipe and put the pieces
together, make sense of the
cabbage, crown the king.

https://rapoetics.com/

On Our Watch

If it had been on his watch,

he would have seen,

he would have given the alarm,

would have been heard

and catastrophe would have been avoided.

She also was alert,

but it was not her watch

and no one heard her warnings.

On their watch we would have heard

the warnings.

But it happened on our watch

and we were sleeping.


http://bluepepper.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/new-poetry-by-lynn-white.html?m=1

The Fall

I'm running downhill
running
faster and faster.
I'm crossing the bridge now,
still running,
running
to the end of the bridge,
trying to see the end.
But there is no end
and I'm falling now,
falling,
falling.
falling into the arms
of the demons below
with their waving arms
outstretched
and their claws primed
waiting to break my fall
and swallow me up
into their depths.
I grasp at the air,
cling to the wind
flailing,
falling.
flailing.
Then,
I’m clinging
to a hopeful ray of sunshine
to carry me up,
to take me with it
into the light.
Now
I'm floating,
floating,
floating upwards or down.
It's not clear,
am I still falling or am I
floating upwards
into the light.

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Which Way

I’m on the edge of the horizon
looking back.
There’s no looking forwards.
Looking up
I can see the sky,
blue or grey like the sea.
Reflected sunlight,
clouds rippling like waves
making shapes in the sand.

Wave shapes on the land.

Sometimes it’s so bright
I can’t tell the blue from the grey,
the cloud from the clear,
the sky from the sea.
The light blinds me.
It’s too bright for my eyes
and leaves me confused
on the edge of the horizon,
on a thin line
with only one way to go.

https://rapoetics.com/

Embryos

Every tree is different.
Sometimes it can be a container
for an embryonic form,
perhaps a parasite
yet to grow branches
to match it’s parent.
Maybe it never will be a match,
but always an alien
form.
Or maybe a new tree will branch
out
from the belly of another alien
form.
We must wait and see.
Every tree is different.

First published in Visual Verse, April 2017

http://visualverse.org/submissions/embryos/

Standing High

Sometimes standing high
above it all
adds colour to a life.
Sometimes you can only see
the monochrome,
the black and white,
the greys.
But perhaps then
I’ll be seen in colour
by those looking down
or looking up at me,
wondering if I will fall.

https://creativetalentsunleashed.com/…/writer-highlight-fe…/

In The End

In the end
I'll be like you.
Dust with
flakes of skin and bone
wrapped in long hair.
Teeth chattering
With no voice.
No sense of taste
or smell.
No reason.
In the end
we'll be invisible,
impenetrable,
anonymous,
figments.
But then, we always were
you and I,
we always were.

https://treehousearts.me/…/poetry-by-lynn-white-dandelion-…/

Dandelion clocks

The field was yellow

with dandelion flowers

only a week ago.

A field of sunshine.

I caught it at that moment,

a moment in time.

And now the moment has passed,

clocked off,

has become a field of clocks

which can’t tell what time it is.

Only that the yellow sunshine

was fragile,

as fragile as a dandelion clock.

Only that time has passed

leaving only clocks

that will soon be wished

away in the wind.

First published in Midnight Circus, Spring 2017

https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Circus-Spring-EAB-Publishing/dp/1544774389

Puzzled

I’m puzzled.

You can see it in my face, can’t you?

When I was a child, black cats were lucky,

especially if they could be persuaded to

cross your path.

Now they’re unlucky.

No one wants them.

You can see why I’m puzzled, can’t you

as I ponder what happened to bring about

this change.

Did they, ever catlike, decide not to co-operate

with the path crossing business

and turn tail to scarper

in the opposite direction?

Or maybe stand their ground

and snarl

and spit

and bare their teeth

like demons.

Perhaps that was it.

Then there’s the raven.

Can it really call ‘nevermore’.

I have heard many a raven call,

but never a

nevermore.

So again, I’m puzzled.

You can see it in my face, can’t you?

http://www.withpaintedwords.com/view_submission.php?news_id=1117